Disease Manifestation and Symptoms

• Heart attack, or acute myocardial infarction, is caused when a blood clot obstructs a coronary artery supplying blood to the heart. This causes an inadequate flow of oxygenated and nutrient-enriched blood and results in the death of a portion of the heart muscle.
• Symptoms of a heart attack may include: uncomfortable pressure, fullness, squeezing or pain in the center of the chest that lasts for more than a few minutes; pain spreading to the shoulders, neck or arms; and chest discomfort with lightheadedness, fainting, sweating, nausea or shortness of breath.

Prevalence

• Heart attack is a leading killer of men and women in developed countries. Each year, as many as 700,000 people in the U.S. will have a coronary attack (includes heart attack and fatal coronary disease). Estimated deaths worldwide due to coronary heart disease total 7.1 million per year.

Time to Treatment

• The average heart attack victim often does not recognize the onset of symptoms, and with time at a premium, waits more than two hours before getting help.
• Each year, more than 225,000 people die from heart attacks within one hour of the onset of symptoms and before ever reaching a hospital.
• Several large, worldwide studies have determined that life-saving heart attack therapies are most beneficial when initiated early in the course of a heart attack.
• Guidelines from the National Institutes of Health's National Heart Attack Alert Program urge hospital emergency departments to reduce delays in treating heart attack patients. The goal is to treat heart attack patients within 30 minutes of arrival in the emergency room.

Gender/Race Statistics

• Each year, approximately 543,000 men and 399,000 women suffer heart attacks. In part because women have heart attacks at older ages than men do, women are more likely to die from an attack within a few weeks. Of the approximately 500,000 fatal heart attacks per year in the U.S., nearly half occur in women.
• Within six years of a heart attack, 18 percent of men and 35 percent of women will suffer another heart attack, and seven percent of men and six percent of women will experience sudden death.

Aftermath

• People who survive the acute stage of a heart attack have a chance of illness and death that is 1.5 to 15 times greater than that of the general population, depending on their sex and clinical outcomes. The risk of another heart attack, sudden death, angina pectoris, heart failure and stroke for both men and women is substantial.
• Approximately 20 percent of heart attack victims will have heart failure within six years of their heart attack.
• Within 6 years after a recognized heart attack:
  • 18% of men and 35% of women will experience sudden death.
  • 22% of men and 46% of women will be disabled with heart failure.

Cost

• Expenditures for coronary heart disease in the U.S. were estimated to exceed $142.1 billion in 2005*.

* Figures were based on projected costs of physician and other professionals, hospital and nursing home services, medication costs, home health and other medical durables, as well as indirect costs associated with lost productivity because of morbidity and mortality.

Sources American Heart Association. 1998 Heart and Stroke Statistical Update.

American Heart Association. 1999 Heart and Stroke Statistical Update.

American Heart Association. 1999 Men and Cardiovascular Diseases.

American Heart Association. 2000 Heart and Stroke Statistical Update.

American Heart Association. 2001 Heart and Stroke Statistical Update.

American Heart Association. 2005 Heart and Stroke Statistical Update.

National Heart Attack Alert Program Coordinating Committee 60 Minutes to Treatment Group, "Emergency Department: Rapid Identification and Treatment of Patients with Acute Myocardial Infarction," NIH Publication No. 93-3278, September 1993.

Yale University School of Medicine Heart Book, Zaret BL, Moser M, Cohen LS, eds., Hearst Books, New York, 1992.